Where IS the Conservatism?

[Annie]

Throwing this out for comment. My take, since 9/11, contrary to his desires or 2000 campaign speeches, this administration needs to focus on WOT. The economy must be watched, but to divert needed attention to domestic programs that may have been at the forefront prior to 9/11, no. Can't afford both.

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/43632.htm

GOP: PARTY OF BLOAT
By RYAN SAGER

THE Republican promise of smaller, less-intrusive gov ernment is getting harder and harder to believe. Especially when a more plausible plot line is unfolding every day: that the GOP has put aside the ideals of Reagan and Goldwater in order to pursue a political strategy based on big spending.

For the latest, check out a report just released by the libertarian Cato Institute that tells a striking story about just how out-of-control spending has gotten under President Bush.

Cato finds that:

* Bush has presided over the largest increase in federal spending since Lyndon Johnson.

* Even excluding defense and homeland security spending, Bush is the biggest-spending president in 30 years.

* The federal budget grew from 18.5 percent of the Gross Domestic Product on President Bill Clinton's last day in office to 20.3 percent at the end of Bush's first term.

Add to that Bush's massive Medicare prescription-drug benefit, expected to cost $720 billion-plus over the next 10 years. (The money for that new entitlement, the first created by a president in a generation, will start flowing this year.)

Bush may have cut taxes, but that's not the same thing as shrinking government. And when government expands, as it has under Bush, taxes will eventually have to follow suit.

And Bush's wild spending spree is no anomaly. To Karl Rove's way of thinking, it's the only way for the Republican Party to "seize the mantle of idealism" from the Democrats.

As Rove told a conference of conservative activists in February, he believes the GOP has in the past been too "reactionary." Republicans have to be for things, not against them. They have to have "visionary goals."

This, Rove said, means "reforming" the tax code, health care, pension plans, the legal system, public education and worker training; "building" an Ownership Society of homes and businesses; "preparing" Americans for meeting "the challenges of a free society; "building" a culture of life; "supporting" religious charities, and "fostering" a culture of "service and citizenship."

If this isn't activist government — that thing conservatives used to be against — it's hard to say what would be.

And it costs a lot of money, as Cato makes clear:

* The budget for the Corporation for National and Community Service (which funds Clinton pet project Americorps) rose 76 percent from 1995 to 2005.

* The Trade Adjustment Assistance program, which pays for job training for workers "displaced" by international trade, has almost quadrupled in size since 1995.

* The budget of the Department of Education (not long ago on the GOP's short list for elimination) has grown by 38 percent in just four years under Bush.

Congress is no innocent victim here — it's an accomplice. Under Clinton, the Republican Congress ratcheted down the president's spending proposals year after year, according to the Cato report. But, under a united Republican government, Congress has ratcheted up Bush's spending proposals (larding them with pork) by about $91 billion from 2002-2005.

It's not always easy to see how radically Bush has transformed the GOP — from Reagan's admonition that "government is the problem" to Dubya's own assertion that "when somebody hurts, government has got to move." But it's a real transformation — and an expensive one.

Average Americans will eventually feel it in the taxes that will have to be raised to fund Bush's massive federal expansion.

Republicans who have stuck by the party's leadership mainly because of the War on Terror will begin to feel it in 2006 and 2008, when they realize that Big Government Conservatism is not a strategy or a philosophy — but a sellout.

 

[SmarterThanYou]

good article. one has to wonder how so many GOP faithful have joined along for the ride and abandoned their conservative values.

 

[Annie]

good article. one has to wonder how so many GOP faithful have joined along for the ride and abandoned their conservative values.

Thanks, I thought it interesting...

 

[NATO AIR]

Power corrupts.

most democrats knew clinton was a dirtbag and that he was destroying the party while building his personal stature and power for 8 years, but they went along for the ride anyway.

 

[OCA]

good article. one has to wonder how so many GOP faithful have joined along for the ride and abandoned their conservative values.

Conservatism as far as congressional Repubs are concerned went down the shitter with the Schiavo deal.

 

[no1tovote4]

Conservatism as far as congressional Repubs are concerned went down the shitter with the Schiavo deal.

Nah, it was long gone before then....

Think Pill Bill....

Think funding education at a Federal Level....

Think actually increasing the money to the NEA....

There are more, but heck why bother.

 

[5stringJeff]

Nah, it was long gone before then....

Think Pill Bill....

Think funding education at a Federal Level....

Think actually increasing the money to the NEA....

There are more, but heck why bother.

This is why, at least for economic issues, the Club for Growth is such a great organization.

 

[NATO AIR]

This is why, at least for economic issues, the Club for Growth is such a great organization.

What's the Club For Growth?

 

[rtwngAvngr]

Look at it this way: Bushco is the only pig at the trough which will actually fight terrorism BEFORE it's too late.

 

[Annie]

Look at it this way: Bushco is the only pig at the trough which will actually fight terrorism BEFORE it's too late.

And that is the best we got? Scary. NCLB and SS is taking precedence over WOT? Fights over Schiavo?

 

[rtwngAvngr]

And that is the best we got? Scary. NCLB and SS is taking precedence over WOT? Fights over Schiavo?

I know. It would have been so easy for dems to win if they had just been more sensible on defending america. But if they have to defend america, what's the point of being liberal. I see their dilemma.

 

[theim]

I read Macchiavelli a while ago for Poli Sci. Quite interesting. People usually lambast The Prince as a guidebook for tyranny or something like that. It wasn't even popular back in the 16th century. (I'm getting to the point)

But the thing is that Macchiavelli's ideas were the political realities at the time. It would have been great virtue had prevailed and Princes who were just good to their people and nice human beings in general had been rewarded, but they weren't. It would have been great if Francesco Sforza and Cesare Borgia hadn't gained exceptional amounts of power through questionable deeds, but they did. Bemoaning these facts does not make them go away.

Likewise today. I prefer not to waste my time wishing for the emergence of the magical third party, the perfect embodiment of all things conservative but reasonable, that will rise up with a tremendous amount of honesty and integrity and cast down the two husks that have been in control for one and a half centuries because, frankly, it's not going to happen. It's not going to happen because A) A vote for anyone else is considered a vote for your evil oponent and B) People like and need money, and the two parties have lots of it. And Private donors don't like to donate to third parties because of the same principle of A.

My point? Take the best you can see and run with it. You now have a choice between:

--The party that has spent a crapload of money, weakened their pro-states rights stance rather considerably, allowed a debatable amount of religious influence into their policies, and did I mention they have spent absurdly large amounts of money?

--The party that has spent most of its existance attempting to bastardize the Constitution with things like, you know, suddenly finding a right to gay marriage in a state constitution written in 1780; wants to tax people untill they actually bleed money, thinks America should be subordinate to the UN, wants abortion on demand, etc.

Pick who you want. I know which I'm going with.

 

[5stringJeff]

What's the Club For Growth?

It's a group that encourages members to vote for supply-side politicians. The donations are made straight from the individual to the candidate, so there's no soft money limits involved. It backed Rep. Toomey against Arlen "RINO" Specter in 2004, because Specter is a wuss and Toomey actually wants smaller government. Great model.

 

[William Joyce]

Sager's column is a good roundup of the data revealing the Bush administration to be anything but advocates for smaller government or states rights. As for the WOT, one way to cut that cost would be to craft a foreign policy that put the interests of America and Americans FIRST (instead of the Likud Party's aims in the middle east).